


Kind and Dangerous

by hypatia



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Guards Guards AU, Murder, Pre-Canon, betrothal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27429694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypatia/pseuds/hypatia
Summary: Sybil's wedding night, in an AU where her father betrothed her. And how it changes things.-“You’re the kindest person I know, Sybil,” he said.“Thank you, Havelock. That means a great deal, coming from you.”
Relationships: Sybil Ramkin & Havelock Vetinari, Sybil Ramkin/Havelock Vetinari
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	Kind and Dangerous

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [ likeadeuce ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeadeuce/pseuds/likeadeuce) for the beta!

Sybil Ramkin, only it wasn’t Ramkin anymore was it, had retired to her new bedroom with an old book after a brief encounter with her new husband. 

Once she’d passed twenty, she hadn’t expected to have a wedding day, much less a wedding night, but her father, at the end of his life, worried rather more than he need have and she’d been betrothed.

Her husband-to-be had been quite a bit older than her and the sort of man who other men thought a ‘fine fellow’ and women of a certain class whispered to each other not to be caught alone with, and women who worked below stairs whispered more dire warnings. She’d attempted to have a sensible conversation about this with her father but ‘fine fellow’ won out and here she was.

There was a soft rustle somewhere in the room and she set her book aside. “Havelock. Come out of the shadows, will you? You know I hate guessing which corner you’ve hidden in.” She knew he’d made the sound for her benefit. If he didn’t want his presence known, it simply wasn’t.

Her best friend since they were children stepped into the light of her candles, which accentuated his sharp features. “You just hate guessing wrong,” he said with a smile.

“Perhaps,” she said amiably. “Tea? I put the kettle on at midnight.” She patted the bed, inviting him to sit down. Considering the events of the evening, she couldn’t bring herself to be shy about him seeing her in her peignoir.

“Yes, thank you. Have I gotten that predictable?” he asked and perched on the edge of the bed. “Just quarter past and you have tea waiting for me.”

“And wedding cake. You may not be a typical assassin,” she said, pouring him a cup and then one for herself. “But you’re still an assassin. You wouldn’t arrive for an inhumation at half past eleven when midnight is an option.”

He shrugged and accepted the cup from her but refused a piece of cake. “May I ask how the wedding night went?”

“No differently than I expected,” said Sybil ruefully. “May I ask how the assassination went?”

“Quite differently than I expected,” said Vetinari fixing her with a very direct stare. “It seems my services weren’t required after all.”

“Oh,” said Sybil and sipped her tea.

“You’re the kindest person I know, Sybil,” he said.

“Thank you, Havelock. That means a great deal, coming from you.”

“Does it?” he sipped his tea and watched her.

She nodded. “Most people say that and mean ‘nice’ or sometimes ‘simple’. But my father taught me about kindness, in the kennels where he bred his dogs and on the farms on the family estate. You do your best for the lives entrusted to your care, but sometimes things go wrong, injuries and such. And then, you have to be kind. And merciful.”

“Your father bred dogs for their temperament as much as anything, didn’t he?” he asked, sipping his tea.

“Where he could, yes. He always said he’d take an agreeable mutt over a vicious purebred any day.”

“Ironic. Given,” here he stopped and waved his hand at their surroundings.

“’Fine fellow’ won,” she said. “Yes. He bred for temperament. He knew that if a dog wouldn’t leave a farmer’s chickens alone, it wasn’t the chickens that would have to go.”

He nodded and took another sip of tea. “I suppose he had something from the alchemists for that?”

“Yes,” she said. “He felt it was worth the extra expense and that it encouraged him to be judicious in its use. Wrap the powder in some tasty morsel and the beast simply falls asleep.”

“Did you leave tonight, after he fell asleep? Or did you see it through?” he asked quietly, though they both knew that he already knew the answer.

“I stayed of course,” said Sybil. “And it’s my wedding night. The servants would talk if I’d left too soon.”

“There will be talk enough tomorrow as it is. Why retain my services?”

“What makes you think that was me?” she asked.

“First, there aren’t many people in the city rich enough to pay the guild fee for your husband.”

“And second?”

“You had tea waiting.”

“I wish you’d been there, at the temple, or the reception. It would’ve been nice to see a friendly face.”

“Your suspiciously close friend the eligible bachelor?” he asked dryly. “Wouldn’t have done.”

“I know.”

“I confess I was a bit surprised our fathers didn’t confer years ago.”

“Your father seemed to think me dull and possibly odd and my father thought you too cold and distant,” she said.

“My father,” said Havelock. “May have been an idiot. You’re the most interesting woman of our generation. I never quite determined what you saw in me, however. I _am_ cold and distant.”

“You never pulled my hair or tried to chase me with toads,” said Sybil with a fond smile.

“A low bar.” Then he scoffed. “You liked the toads rather better than any of the boys inclined to that nonsense anyway.”

“It rather confused them.” She agreed and shrugged. “And I enjoy your company and conversation. It’s been pleasant over the years, helping each other with lessons now and again. Trading the interesting facts we encountered. And the occasional snide observation.”

“It has. But, why retain me? I’ll go back to the guild and refuse the fee because I did nothing and the rumor will spread round the city that your husband exhausted himself with his new bride, isn’t it a pity, what a way to go, with possible snickering asides about your bosom. But that part would have happened anyway.”

“Who would be a more unimpeachable witness to the apparent natural causes of his death than an assassin?” she asked. Then, to his surprise, she flushed slightly. “And because I need to ask a favor and it had to be tonight.” She set aside her teacup and fidgeted with the counterpane.

“A favor from a friend on your wedding night?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

“This favor might test the bounds of _friendship_ ,” she said and looked at him meaningfully. He blinked at her. “So, before I make my request, I need to emphasize that ‘no’ is a perfectly valid and acceptable answer and I would bear no ill will if you hesitate for _any_ reason. You understand?” she continued to fidget with the bedding and could only glance at him for brief moments before looking away again.

He nodded. It took quite a bit to discomfit his friend and he’d only rarely been the source of it. He set his teacup on the table next to her bed and looked at her solemnly. “Ask,” he said.

“My marriage wasn’t—consummated,” she said, staring down at her hands. She glanced up; his eyes widened but his face was expressionless. “There’s a chance one of his relatives could insist that be—checked.” She’d flushed bright pink. “Or, if I… that is… if there was a child, there’d be no question.” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “I can’t believe I’m asking this Havelock, but…”

“Sybil,” said Vetinari and she opened her eyes to look at him warily. “Do you really want that? Because any midwife could tell you how to make it look like…”

“I do,” she said. She stopped fidgeting and set her jaw. “If you’ll have me.”

“I will,” he said and moved closer, then he swallowed.

Anyone else might have missed it, but Sybil saw the flash of nerves he was attempting to conceal. “But?” she asked.

Now he flushed, just slightly. “While I know the theory,” he said slowly, “I too have yet to have the practicum.”

“Ah,” said Sybil and then gave him a small mischievous smile. “It’s a good thing I enjoy helping you with your lessons.”

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, “Trading interesting facts we encounter.”

“And the occasional snide observation?”

“Wouldn’t miss _them_ for anything,” he said.

They fumbled a bit at first. Out of their clothes and into each other’s arms. Whispering to each other as they worked out ‘the mechanics’ as Havelock insisted on calling it, which made Sybil snicker in a decidedly unladylike manner.

“Perhaps if you…”

“I think I…”

“Oh, that’s how that…”

“Could you?”

“Does this…”

“It _does_.”

There was, admittedly, some discomfort on both their parts, one shared fit of uncontrollable giggles, and an unexpectedly passionate kiss that left them both breathless.

In the end, they were both satisfied if slightly damp. Sybil realized she doubtless ought to have expected that bit, but it had not occurred to her. They lay facing each other, holding each other while they caught their breaths and he watched her, relaxed and slightly bemused. It was quite different from his usual expression; she thought it might be lovely to see him look like this more often.

“Thank you,” she said. Then her eyes sparkled with brief mischief. “I’m so glad you could—make it—tonight.”

“You’re quite welcome,” he said, as if he were taking formal leave at the doorstep. “It’s been an unexpectedly—pleasant—evening.”

“Mm,” she agreed. “I do hope I’ve been a gracious hostess. You’re my first visitor in my new home after all.”

Their eyes met and then they had to look away before setting off another fit of laughter.

When Sybil regained her composure, she grew solemn. “We probably shouldn’t see each other for a while. Until. Well.”

“Yes,” he agreed. He was absently tracing patterns on her back. It felt pleasant and she told him so.

“What might you need from me, if?” he asked.

“If, and if it’s a boy, it will be more complicated. The family won’t want you around. You may need to be creative,” they shared another smile. “If it’s a girl, they’ll be less fussy. Be her godfather. Can you manage avuncular?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Both my uncles were assassins.”

“You’ll have no problem then,” she said with a fond smile. “Is there a woman’s name in your family that you like? I think I’d like to call her Selene.”

“My mother and aunt shared Lydia as their second name.”

“Selene Lydia Evangeline Diedre Ramkin,” said Sybil.

“Ramkin? Not…”

“If I have a daughter, there’s no heir. I return to my own estates, taking all the servants with me, and let his cousins fight it out over the property.”

“How modern of you.”

She made a face at him.

“Have a care with the servants, with a master like theirs there may be some…”

“I know,” said Sybil. “I’ll trust my people’s judgment on that.”

“I should go,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

There was a pause.

“I’ll write,” she said. “If I have news.”

“Good luck,” he said.

“Thank you.”

There was another pause.

“I should go,” he said again.

She watched him silently.

“I don’t want to go,” he said, tightening his grip where he held her.

“What do you want?” she asked in the kindest voice she could muster.

He closed his eyes for a long moment, then shook his head and pulled away.

They dressed in silence and Sybil rinsed one of the teacups in the washbasin, the only visible evidence of his presence that night.

“Good night Havelock,” she said as he climbed out her window.

“Good night Sybil.”

In the first few years following the birth of her daughter, the young widow proved a devoted mother, though a bit eccentric. Her choice to switch from breeding dogs as her father had to swamp dragons (of all things) had raised a few eyebrows, but who was going to judge the richest woman in the city?

Her daughter, five years old when the final litter of puppies was born, insisted that her favorite, whom she dubbed “Wuffles”, should go to her beloved ‘Uncle Havelock’.

Sybil had watched with mild amusement and great fondness as Vetinari had attempted, unsuccessfully, to dissuade young Selene who worried he might be lonely.

At length, he was forced to admit that yes, perhaps he _would_ be less lonely if he had a puppy. That was very thoughtful of her, he’d said, watching her mother carefully, had she thought this up all on her own?

Selene beamed proudly and insisted she had. Sybil simply smiled beatifically at her daughter and friend.

Not long after Selene’s eighth birthday, Sybil suggested that it was time to let her in on their secret. Vetinari demurred. Not, he insisted, out of concern Selene couldn’t keep a secret, but out of concern she might ask questions requiring—awkward—answers.

“You’re concerned she’ll ask about—the mechanics—of it?” Sybil asked.

“Aren’t you?” he asked.

“She’s grown up around breeding dogs and now swamp dragons. She’s at least passingly familiar with how that works,” she said. “She may get to those questions eventually and I’ll manage them. Not that the questions she’ll most likely ask immediately won’t still be awkward for us. I don’t think that reduces our need to tell her. And the sooner the better now that she’s old enough to keep a secret.”

“I’ll defer to your good judgment,” he said. There was a hint of something in his face as he said it.

“What is it?”

“She may be angry, with me, or us, for not telling her sooner.”

“Yes, she may,” Sybil agreed. “But she’s quite fond of you, as you well know. It’s likely that she’ll forgive us eventually.”

Selene took the news solemnly and promised she understood the gravity of keeping the secret. There were people who didn’t like Uncle Havelock, she repeated back to them, eyes wide. Enough that they might try to hurt her, or her mother, _or the dragons_ if they knew they were related.

“I’m afraid that’s correct,” said Vetinari.

“I don’t want you to be afraid,” said Selene gravely. “I won’t tell.”

Vetinari blinked. He looked at Sybil, then back at his daughter. “Thank you, Selene. That’s very kind.” He paused and gave her a small smile. “What questions do you have?” he asked. “If you’d like, we can wait and you can think about that until next month when I visit for tea again.”

She nodded and thought for a moment. “When no one is around may I call you papa? That’s what my friends call their fathers.”

Sybil reflected, as she watched his expression flicker, too fast for Selene to have caught, that she now knew exactly how he would look in the unlikely event that anyone ever managed to stab him in the heart.

“I think it would be best if you keep calling me Uncle Havelock,” he said after a moment.

“There might be spies?” Selene asked. The way she bounced in her seat betrayed how exciting she thought the prospect might be.

“I suppose there could be,” he said carefully. “But also, sometimes when you make a habit of saying something, you can say it when you don’t mean to.”

She thought about this for a moment. “Like when I accidentally told Reggie he smelled funny?”

“Reggie?” asked Vetinari glancing at Sybil.

“Ronnie Rust’s boy,” murmured Sybil.

“Yes,” said Vetinari. “Exactly.”

“Millie’s eggs are going to hatch soon,” said Selene.

“Are they?” he asked.

She nodded vigorously then looked at her mother. “May I be excused to go check them?”

“Of course, dear,” said Sybil. “Just be back in in time to wash for supper.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, once Selene had disappeared.

He sipped his tea. “I’m not certain what you have to apologize for.”

She sat down next to him in the place Selene had just vacated. “It was terribly insensitive, to ask what I did of you. Quite selfish of me.”

“Do you regret that you have her?” he asked.

“Never.”

“Then don’t regret how she came to be.” He glanced in the direction Selene had run off. “I don’t.”

When a dragon appeared in Ankh-Morpork some years later and demanded a high-born virgin, it was Lady Sybil’s daughter, recently returned to Ankh-Morpork after graduating from Quirm College for Young Ladies, that they came for and the night watch rescued.

“You’re fond of him,” observed Vetinari over tea after the dust had settled, “Our Captain Vimes.”

“Perhaps,” said Sybil. “The two of you won’t get on. It will be good for you.”

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “I don’t ‘get on’ with most people.”

Sybil smiled, “True. But he’s different, isn’t he? He could be the challenge you’ve been needing.”

“Surely ruling Ankh-Morpork is challenge enough for anyone.”

“You’d think so,” said Sybil, “and yet you kept on a secretary who summoned a dragon that nearly ate,” she paused significantly, “my daughter.”

Vetinari actually flinched, just slightly. “Will you forgive me for endangering her?” he asked.

“I rather think I have to. She thought the whole thing was great fun. I’d blame you—Uncle Havelock—but she did grow up around swamp dragons, so I suppose I bear part of the responsibility.”

“She is indeed—your—daughter,” he said. His expression was not in the slightest bit smug. At all.

“But things wouldn’t work with Captain Vimes and myself, I’m afraid,” she said. “Not the way you seem to be hoping.”

He raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

“If we were to become—close—I would not wish to have secrets from him.”

“Ah,” he said. “If you tell him, you’ll be confessing murder to a watchman.”

“Yes,” said Sybil. “He was in the watch back then too. He knows there was no justice for the women my husband harmed or those he would have harmed if I’d allowed that to continue. I suspect he’d understand but want nothing further to do with me.”

Vetinari tilted his head. “He needs you.”

She gave him a calculating look in return, “That’s not quite right, is it Havelock?”

He remained silent again.

“ _You_ need _him_. And perhaps he needs someone _like_ me. It needn’t _be_ me. I’m just conveniently placed right now and you believe it would be for the good of the city.”

“It would be a kindness.”

“To lie to him? For his own good?” Sybil drew herself up and met his eyes. “No. It would be deeply cruel. This part doesn’t have the tidy solution you were hoping for. You’ll have to find another.”

“Tell him you hired me to assassinate your husband. It’s perfectly true.”

She cocked her head, “And then took you to my bed after you did the deed? That’s worse and lying by omission is no improvement. As you well know.”

After a pause, he nodded. “I don’t like to see you alone, Sybil,” he said.

“No more alone than you.”

He stood and walked over to the window where he could look out over the city. “I should have answered your question,” he said.

She joined him at the window and regarded him thoughtfully. “Which question was that?”

“What I wanted. That night.”

She waited.

“Back then, this,” he waved a hand at the palace around them, “was all in the future; the elaborate plan of an ambitious young man. I wanted it, knew I could do it, but it wasn’t a tangible thing.” He stopped speaking and took her hand.

“What did you want, that night?” she asked in her kindest voice.

“To stay. To do that again. To fall asleep and to wake up next to you. To have this _and_ that. Which I was convinced was impossible.”

“Would you change this? If you could.”

“No. But I should have told you it was a near thing.”

She squeezed his hand, “I knew,” she said with a kind smile, “And what do you want now? My dearest and most dangerous friend.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've had the outline of this idea for years, but only recently figured out what it needed to make it into a story.
> 
> There's a scene in Guards, Guards where would be dragon slayers are asking whether Vetinari has a daughter they can marry once they've slain the dragon. Vimes tells them Vetinari has a small dog. And I got thinking: what if that weren't exactly true?


End file.
